He Was There: Why Kobe Means so Much to L.A.

As a Lakers fan and a former Angeleno, I was among the millions stunned by the news of Kobe Bryant’s death this past Sunday. I logged into my computer to put on some music, clicked over to ESPN to check a score, and the headline knocked the wind out of me.

Instantly, instinctively even, I knew that I was not alone in this feeling. I live on the east coast these days, thousands of miles from Los Angeles, and yet I knew that the city was hurting. I reached out to a good friend, a guy I used to go to Lakers games with. He said everywhere you looked there were Kobe jerseys and people crying.?

Over the course of his magnificent career, Kobe Bryant forged a powerful bond with Laker fans and with the city of Los Angeles. This was a you-had-to-be-there kind of connection. You had to live in L.A., or at least be a die-hard Laker fan, to understand what this man came to mean to a city.?

So here I was with a huge sense of loss, thousands of miles from the people who could understand it most. I wanted to be able to explain how I felt to my kids who are too young to have known Kobe as a player, and to my wife who is from Hungary. Why did a basketball player matter so much to a city? Why does it hurt so much that he is gone??

I remember the joy of watching Kobe in his early years. You didn’t want to miss a Lakers game because there was always the possibility, the likelihood even, that Kobe would do something incredible. Any moment he might pull off a majestic athletic feat or put on a superhuman display of effort. It wasn’t enough to watch the highlights on Sports Center, you wanted to see it live and to talk about it with your friends the next day.?

But the incredible plays and the miraculous shots are not the reason that L.A. is mourning. Many great athletes have given their fans the gift of a good show. Kobe and L.A. had something more, but how do explain it? And then this morning it hit me.?As fans, Kobe had our back.

I teach my children to avoid using the words always and never when talking about others. Always and never belong to the domain of natural laws like gravitation and electromagnetism. They are not apt describers for something as messy and unreliable as human behavior. But then there was Kobe.?

It didn’t take long for Laker’s fans to come to understand that, though the Lakers might lose, or though Kobe might miss the final shot, or not score with his usual efficiency, it was never going to be because Kobe stayed up late partying, or skipped a film session, or took a practice off. We knew we could always rely on the fact that Kobe had done everything possible to prepare to play, and that once on the floor, he had given every bit of himself to the game.??

Kobe had our back.

Night after night, season after season, Kobe earned our trust. Other players, even great players, came and went. Kobe remained. For twenty years, Kobe was there giving it his all in a way that you could count on like you could count on gravity to hold your feet to the floor when you woke up in the morning. How many people can you say something like that about?

Yes, he would sometimes hold the ball and clog up the offense. Yes, he could be grating on teammates. But it was not a matter of ego. It was a matter of competing at the highest level. It was a matter of his unrelenting drive. And so we learned to forgive and eventually forget his faults. Over time, they seemed puny and insignificant next to the magnitude of his years of unrivaled commitment.

In the past two days, dozens have come forward, athletes and writers, coaches and players, men and women, young and old, great and small, to share how Kobe answered their calls and responded to their texts and encouraged them when they struggled and helped them to believe when they were fighting with doubt. Kobe had their backs too.

When someone has your back, I mean when they really have your back, that means that you never even think to look over your shoulder to check that they are there. It never crosses your mind, because you know they are there. So perhaps the way I can help my kids to understand why so many are mourning this loss is to tell them this: Kobe is missed so much because he was there so much.?

We never needed to check. He was there. Now he is not. And that will take some getting used to.